36. Ivy #2
In a room defined by my father’s rigid rules and clinical boundaries, Cal breaks them all: he reaches out and takes my hand, interlacing our fingers in a grip so solid it feels like he’s anchoring me to the earth. The heat radiating off him is enough to finally steady the trembling in my joints.
He leans in, his height shielding me from William’s piercing gaze, and presses a slow, lingering kiss to my forehead.
“We’ve got you, Ivy,” he murmurs against my skin, his voice a low rumble that vibrates in my chest.
He stays right there, his thumb tracing circles over my knuckles as he looks William dead in the eye—the Captain meeting the General Manager.
“This isn’t a negotiation, William,” Cal says, his voice a low, steady rumble. “This is the team. And the team has made its choice.”
William looks at the wall of men in his office. He looks at the defiance in Cash’s eyes, the solidity of Hale, and the way Callahan is anchored to my side as if he were part of the floor.
For the first time, I see my father truly realize that he no longer owns this room.
He built the arena, but we built the soul inside it.
“Leave us,” William says quietly, gesturing to the players. “All of you. Get to the rink. I need a moment with my daughter.”
The players linger, looking at me for confirmation. I give them a small, shaky nod.
Cal hesitates the longest, his eyes searching mine one last time before he leads the way out, the doors clicking shut with a finality that echoes through the room.
The silence that returns is different. It’s heavy with the weight of things that can’t be unsaid.
“They’re loyal,” William says, his voice rough. He doesn’t look at me. He’s staring at the empty space where the team was standing. “I never could get them to move like that for me. Not even when I was paying them triple what they’re worth.”
“You can’t buy a heartbeat, Dad,” I say.
He finally looks up, and now the GM mask is gone completely.
There is just a man who is very, very tired.
“Iveline… I’m sorry. I don’t know how to be the man your mother loved without the job to hide behind. I see now that I’ve spent fifteen years trying to manage you instead of knowing you.”
It’s not a perfect apology. It doesn’t erase the years of cold dinners and colder silences. It’s clumsy and jagged, but it’s the most honest thing he’s ever said to me.
William sighs, a long, rattling sound. “I’ll handle the press. I’ll make sure the narrative stays on the hockey. Just… win the damn Cup. Do it your way. I clearly don’t know how to do it mine anymore.”
I nod, the lump in my throat making it hard to speak.
I turn and walk toward the door, my boots clicking on the hardwood. I don’t look back as I leave the office, but I feel the weight of his gaze on my shoulders until the doors close behind me.
The arena is still dim, the only light coming from the glowing emergency exits.
Callahan is leaning against the concrete wall near the locker room entrance, his head tilted back, eyes closed.
When he hears the sharp, uneven click of my boots against the floor, he’s alert in an instant.
He doesn’t ask how it went. He doesn’t ask if I still have a job. He just looks at me, his gaze heavy with a protective sort of yearning that makes my chest ache.
I stop just inches away, close enough to smell the familiar scent of wood smoke that clings to him even in the sterile environment of the arena.
“He’s staying out of the way,” I whisper, the words coming out more like a broken exhale than a sentence.
Cal lets out a long, visible breath of relief, his shoulders finally losing that rigid, combat-ready tension. He reaches out, his hand hovering for a fraction of a second before he slides it into my hair, his fingers tangling in the strands at the nape of my neck.
“Good,” he murmurs, his voice dropping an octave, thick with a grit that wasn’t there before. “Because Cash wasn’t joking about that tweet. He was already arguing with Nico about which hashtags would do the most damage.”
I let out a small, wet laugh, and as the adrenaline of the last hour finally ebbs away, it leaves a hollow, stinging vulnerability in its wake.
My forehead comes to rest against the center of his chest, and I can hear his heart beating—a steady, rhythmic thrum against my ear.
It is the same heart my father accused me of manipulating, yet here it is, sounding like a sanctuary.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement near the equipment trunks.
The boys are there—Cash, Hale, and Nico—pretending to be deeply fascinated by a stack of practice jerseys and a roll of sock tape. They’re hovering, clearly trying to give us space while simultaneously making it very obvious that they aren’t going anywhere.
Cash is holding a hockey stick upside down, his eyes darting toward us every three seconds, while Hale stands there, staring intensely at a blank wall as if it held the secrets to the universe.
They’re a terrible, wonderful audience.
I look up at Cal, and a single, traitorous tear finally slips free, tracking a hot path down my cheek.
Before it can even reach my jaw, Cal’s thumb is there.
He brushes it away with a tenderness that feels like a physical ache, his hand cupping the side of my face as if I were something fragile he’s finally been allowed to hold.
“Cal,” I say, my voice barely a thread of sound, raw with everything I’m holding back.
“I know, honey,” he whispers, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with an admiration that makes my knees weak.
From the shadows, I hear Cash whisper-yell, “Is it over? Can we go to the rink now or are we still doing the romantic thing? Because my glucose levels are plummeting, I need an ice cream.”
I laugh as I wipe the rest of the dampness from my eyes.
“Let’s go to work,” I say, straightening my blazer and finding that spine of ice again—the one that belongs to me, not my father.
He smiles. “After you, Coach.”
I turn toward the ice, walking past the team as they erupt into poorly suppressed grins and shoulder bumps.
For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like a St. James legacy.
I feel like a woman who is loved, and that is more than enough to win a championship.